Bram offers the scarf pin to Lilith. “I found this,” he states a little more bluntly than he had intended. “In Mangan’s studio. You must have dropped it when you attended with Miss Pilkington-Adams. I … I wanted to return it to you. As quickly as possible. I thought you might be looking for it,” he finishes. He notices for the first time that there is still oil paint beneath his fingernails. He snatches his hands away.

Lilith smiles slowly. She turns the pin over. Light flashes off the gem-studded wings of the little dragonfly.

“Why, thank you,” she says. “I had indeed missed it. I am fond of this pin—it was a present from my late father. It was so good of you to bother to deliver it to me in person.”

“It looked … important. I thought it best not to entrust it to a messenger or post boy.”

“And you brought a guard, in case some robber should try to wrest it from you?” she teases, nodding in Perry’s direction. Perry grins and looks as if he might say something but Bram successfully silences him with a harsh stare. Lilith says, “I think the very least I can do after such diligence is to offer you tea. I’m afraid Mama is indisposed this morning and is staying in her room.” She turns to the butler. “Radley, would you ask Cook for some of her splendid shortbread and a pot of Darjeeling?”

She leads her visitors through to the drawing room. Although winter is settling in now, there is still plenty of golden sunshine falling through the tall windows, which are framed by swags of silk and brocade of palest blue to match the eggshell walls.

“What a pretty room,” Bram murmurs.

“Mama would be pleased to hear you say so. She prides herself on having an eye for decor, and took to the Art Nouveau movement wholeheartedly. Father was not particularly enamored of it. He said all the flowers made him want to sneeze, even if they were only painted or carved in wood.”

“But she has shown restraint I think.” He wanders about the room, taking in the Tiffany lamps and a fine Mackintosh table. Lilith follows him as he explores, while Perry takes a place in a window seat at the far end of the room.

“Oh!” Bram cannot help exclaiming, “That is a piece of Lalique, unless I am mistaken,” he says, stopping next to an elegant vase of frosted glass with a fine pattern of leaves twisting up it.

“You have a good eye. Mama is particularly proud of that. Mrs. Jessop will insist on trying to put flowers in it, which sends my mother into a tirade about the beauty and value of the thing, and how it is not some lowly vessel in which to display chrysanthemums.”

“Now I know you’re teasing me—I don’t believe a single humble chrysanthemum ever entered this house.”